CompareExodus19:6:מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִים וְגֹוי קָדֹושׁ(mamleḵeṯ kohănīm wəḡōy qāḏōš,“[…] a kingdom of priests and a holy nation”) (referring to the Jewish people). The wordgoy does not technically refer to non-Jews, but rather to a nationper se; the Jews are said to constitute agoy. But through common usage – namely referring to "the [other non-Jewish] nations" – the word came to colloquially refer to non-Jews.
This noun is sometimes taken to be offensive; speakers wishing to avoid offense may prefer the termgentile (sometimes capitalized asGentile) or simplynon-Jew.
The pluralgoyim is occasionally misinterpreted as a singular form by people unfamiliar with Hebrew, yielding redundant plural forms such asgoyims.
